Serbian losses in World War I
About this video
This short video highlights how devastating World War I was for Serbia. A small country of about 4.5 million people with an army of around 400,000, Serbia was overrun in 1915 and only recaptured by the Allies in 1918; about 60% of its army and 16% of its total population died.
You'll be able to
- describe what happened to Serbia between 1915 and 1918.
- use percentages to describe Serbia's losses in World War I.
- explain why Serbia may have suffered more than any other country in the war.
Key words
- Decimated
- Severely damaged or reduced, with a large share killed.
- Casualties
- People killed or wounded in a war.
- Allies
- The side in World War I that included Britain, France and Serbia, which recaptured Serbia in 1918.
Transcript
In the last video, we talked about how the Serbians were able to hold back the Austro-Hungarians at the beginning of World War I. But eventually they had to give in. They couldn't hold up against the combined forces of the Bulgarians, the Austro-Hungarians, and the Germans.
And they were able to roll through in 1915. And then we wait until 1918 for the Allies to essentially recapture Serbia. Now what is noteworthy-- there's many noteworthy things in World War I and obviously we can't cover all of them-- is just what a huge loss World War I was to the Serbian people.
Just as a little bit of context, very small country-- we're talking 4.5 million people as we enter into World War I-- with a reasonably, I guess relative to the size of the country, it was a decent-sized army. But with an army we're talking on the order of 400,000 soldiers.
And this was pretty much everyone in the country who could be in the army was essentially in the army. Over the course of the Serbian campaign and the Macedonian front, you essentially have the Serbian army getting decimated. You have 60% of the Serbian army dies.
Roughly 60% of the Serbian army is killed. And even from a population point of view, the Serbian population is reduced by 16%. 16% of the Serbian population, civilian and military, is dead by the end of World War I. So a lot of countries suffered horribly during World War I. There's many notable ones, France, the Russian Empire.
We could go on and on and on. But it would be hard to argue that any country suffered more than what the Serbians did. 60% of their military dead, 16% of their population.
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